First Friday finish!

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I finished the Glimmer table topper last night, hand stitching the binding down.

I cut the binding 2.25″ instead of my usual 2.5″, on the straight grain.

Press, sew to front, fold to back and even pressed to help turn. Hand stitched in white quilting thread that was my grandmother’s. It still in excellent condition.

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Then I realized I’d made a lighter mostly red topper and had a matching mostly green topper from the same line of fabrics.

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They even stack nice! All ready for next Christmas.

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Linking up to Crazy Mom Quilts and her Friday finishes, which are hard for me to post to, since I do the bulk of my sewing on Friday/Saturday – my days off – and I try and spend little time on my computer. So I mostly forget by Sunday/Monday to go back and link up.

Trying out graffiti quilting

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I can’t remember if it was early in the last year or before that, but I first saw Karlee Porter’s graffiti quilting on Pinterest and was, quite simply, blown away.

So when she finally came out with a book, Graffiti Quilting: A Simple Guide to Complex Designs of course I put it on my wishlist and eventually bought it.  Shipping stuff to Canada is expensive, ugh.

Anyway, by the time I got my hands on the book itself, I’d practised on paper.

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And I practised on fabric too. But after reading the book I sat down with my large box of coloured threads and went to town, copying one of her pieces (which she highly encourages, for practise).

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In a way it’s hard, like any FMQ, because you’re not sure what to do next, or where to go. You have to really stop and think. So in one sense, you can’t really mark it on the fabric first, if you like doing that. You’d have to do some rough sketches first. Also, if you use thicker thread, you have to manage the thread build up, maybe incorporate it to look like thicker lines in the design itself.

But in the other sense? Oh boy, what creative freedom. It’s almost scary.

I have a quilt all basted and ready to go and has been sitting waiting for a least a month. I plan to do something similar to graffiti quilting but not as visible, just all white thread on a quilt with a white background.

And yet I still hesitate.

Looking over last year’s posts, I did see how I had issues working on one quilt and the gap of creative constipation in there is noticeable when I scroll through my photos.

I mean – what’s the worst that can happen? I hate it? If it doesn’t turn out as good as I see in my head, why does that matter? It’s not like anyone else can see what I see in my head, even if I sketch it out before hand. Right? And it’s going to be white on white for the most part… sheesh.

I need to take my own advice and just stitch it already.

Almost got another finish in under the wire

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I ordered a pile of stuff from Fat Quarter Shop on Black Friday. My grubby hands finally got a bunch of Jaybird Quilt patterns, including Glimmer.

I used the Pillow option to make a small table topper in some remaining Jingle All The Way Christmas fabric.

And then last night I squeezed out some time to do this:
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It was pretty fast, maybe 40 minutes? And I had to change bobbins twice, mostly because I was using up half empty ones. I did a different design in each color section.

Now all I need to do is bind this in the matching red print and it’s done. First finish of 2015!

Finishes for the year

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And now the wrap up for the finishes of the year:

Finished quilts –
29, including 16 runners or minis.
northern lights rainbow mini quilt
2 rock candy toppers
1 heart topper
floral sampler quilt
the bee quilt
scrapper’s delight
mariner’s compas
30’s jitterbug
2 sticks and stones toppers
starry runner
diamonds runner
mini bunny quilt
grey tula pink
big log cabin for kids
fast forward brown quilt
2 baby blankies & 2 quilted small ones (Noah’s ark panels)
pink.aqua & green girl’s quilt
scrappy green yellow brick road
biege feathered quilt
christmas cross
pine tree table runner
wp tshirt quilt
rainbow stripes quilt
navy and white snowman quilt
mini charm pack sewing machine cover
ink bottle mini quilt

not including panels & quilts for mom (9, quilting only)
rainbow strings
julia’s quilt
pink baby quilt
scrappy squares
2 Christmas small quilts
fall wall hanging
sunbonnet sam panel
Christmas panel

Other sewing I finished – FORTY ITEMS
40’s green dress
headbands for girls , wine bottle cover
blue knit dress I haven’t worn which is now too big
2 draped cardigans
baby sleep sacks
knit kids undies, not sure how many pairs
a WP bow tie
ipad stand
amy butler purse & wallet
2 kid’s ties
blue;s clues dress
3 orange ruffled dresses
4 swimsuits
3 more shoulder tie dresses
mommy & two daughter smocked pull on dresses from remnant
red polar fleece coat for fall
happy birthday bunting
thread catcher
2 change purses
smaller wallet
lanyards
downton abbey purse and wallet
elas, Anna and Olaf costumes
Knight hoodie

Quilts in progress
16 in planning stages, not cut
12 in various stages & ages

I expect a lot of finished over the next couple months, since I’m trying to finish long standing projects I got bored of before I head on to yet another project.Any new projects I’m trying to limit to commissions (a.k.a someone paid me to make it).

I was going to try and link to each one, but that is a HUGE list. I had no idea.

Year of Making

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So this week I bought Kim Werker’s ebook, the Year of Making. It wasn’t completely impulsive. I try and do something creative every day. I usually fail and it bunches up, with nothing Mon-Wed and a complete immersion for Fri-Sat.

For optimal happiness and sanity I really need to do something every single day. So I got the ebook, because it advertised worksheets and I really need something to help organize my thoughts. So. Many. Thoughts. And the ideas… they just keep coming.

I’ve started already, not waiting for the new year, and am up to day… 5? I think? I realized the 2-3 days before I purchased the ebook, I also did something creative each day but I didn’t “cheat” and write them down and backdate.

The other thing, not entirely a resolution, is I really need to get back to blogging more. I have too many sites. Sometimes I want to write something and get stopped simply because I’m not sure which blog to use for it. To that end, expect more non-quilting talk here. It should still be quilt / sewing craft related though. Another reason I need to do this more is because I was thinking about the lists of finishes of the year and pretty sure I can’t remember ALL the things I made that were not quilts. I might have taken pictures but haven’t posted anything anywhere.

I need to do this more for me, not for reading audiences, simply because my memory is that bad. It’s just good for me to catalogue these things. And it’s not just doing something creative / artsy / crafty just for the sake of doing something. I have actual skills I want to expand.

The challenging bit is, figuring out what those are, what I want to improve on, what things my fuzzy memory said at one time “Ooo that’d be cool to try!”. I’m not a new crafter myself, and I had a (small, tiny) retail craft store (in my home and fledgling online) in the mid to late 90’s. I also taught classes, so there’s a HECK of a lot of basic common crafting topics and things and skills that I’ve already tried. (I actually wrote down glass making and blacksmithing for things I’d like to try.)

But what I have found, because of my impatience, I dive right in and skip some details of things I’ve tried previously. I have some skills, but some are… to be frank.. sloppy. And this also leads me to over-thinking about perfectionism and that very fine teetering knife edge of being a perfectionist versus refining existing skills so you are better.

WHEW.

See? It’s all Kim’s fault for making me think this deep. 😀

Welcome Blogathon visitors!

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Hi! I’m Andrea! Feel free to poke around, leave comments, have a party.

I live in fredericton NB and just bought a house in Keswick, so if you are in either area and a quilter, PLEASE leave a link to your blog so I can stalk you.. er, I mean so we can be new quilting Best Friends!

I really love modern quilting so if there’s anything in the area for that, I’d love to know!

There’s 3 quilt guilds around here I have yet to visit, but that is on my list for the new year. If you see me there, I’ll be the one with the colorful hair. Usually it’s pink, right now it’s purple. At least, so far this week!

For more on me and creativity, I recently did an interview with a long time online friend, so go visit her podcast here Episode 6 : Me Being Crafty

Also stop by the Christmas Crab quiltery – our local quilt store. I do tech support for them, if you’ve seen me around. Yep, that’s me!

Oversize log cabin

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I made this oversize single log cabin block quilt way back in May of 2012.

boy log cabin

I just pulled pieces of kid prints from my stash and went to town, building up a block until it was a decent size. I did very little cutting of fabric.

This summer, I finally got around to quilting it. I backed it in a cheery dinosaur print and did an allover stipple. It was fast. Then I bound it in this great lime green solid.

You can buy this quilt in my Etsy shop too.

Two Runners

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I finished two table runners this summer, as well. Both use fabrics from the same christmas line – Jingle All the Way and some Bernartex basics that co-ordinated.

Both runners were from the same pattern, Little Charmers 2. I love her patterns, I want them all.

I separated the dark greens, blues and the yellows for the starry runner. In the background I quilted spirals and in the stars I did straight line, somewhat dot to dot quilting.

For the blocks runner, I used the reds, lighter greens and beiges to build up the design. I messed up the color placement but anyone I showed it to couldn’t tell the difference. I quilted a leafy design following the blocks. Since it is both Christmassy and summery I called it Christmas in Australia.

Both of these runners are available in my Etsy shop.

Rainbow Northern Lights mini

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I used the Hex n More ruler and the Northern Lights pattern to make a rainbow wall hanging. I followed the pattern but used the smallest size on the ruler.

It took a while because of the small pieces and I kept putting it down to work on other things. But, once the top was completely done, I did straight line quilting to match the zig zag effect, bound it in black and sent it off as a gift.

I sent it to the head office of the company I work for, so they had more bright art on the walls. They loved it!

I will probably make this again.

As always, click images for bigger.

Quilting the Jitterbug Quilt

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Ages ago (March 2011) I started the Jitterbug quilt that is on the cover of Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts. I even bought 1930’s reproduction prints off eBay. Got a deal on those, still using some of them up.

I had piecing issues and pressing issues with this quilt. I know it’s my technique, not the pattern and I’ve learned a bunch since then even. Like maybe not do 2.5″ HSTs. At least not without tons of starch.

The top was done for quite a while and was stuck with the rest waiting for batting. I finally basted it this summer. The only other issue I had was what to quilt. The pieces really were too small to do much custom fancy quilting, so I just stitched in the ditch.

At least it worked. Even if the entire process of this quilt was frustrating.

I bound the edges in scraps of the 30’s prints as well. The backing is just plain white. It’s a good old fashioned quilt and I probably should label it. Ron likes it and we keep it on the spare bed.